- DeepSeek raised about 100 billion yuan ($15 billion), with CATL and Tencent among the largest investors, according to people familiar with the deal.
- The company lifted its target at least twice, from 50 billion yuan to 80 billion yuan and then to the final figure, roughly doubling what it set out to raise.
- Together with a first round of about $7 billion that closed in May, DeepSeek has drawn roughly $22 billion of outside capital in 2026.
DeepSeek has raised about 100 billion yuan, or roughly $15 billion, in one of the largest private financings in China's history, putting the Hangzhou lab that made frontier-grade AI cheap on a funding footing it has never had before. The round, first reported by Bloomberg on October 22 citing people familiar with the matter, drew its largest checks from battery maker CATL and WeChat operator Tencent. DeepSeek has not announced the round.
DeepSeek doubled its target as Tencent and CATL wrote the biggest checks
The round has grown in stages. DeepSeek reopened fundraising in August seeking close to $8 billion at a valuation of about $74 billion, as Santage reported at the time, after a first outside round of roughly $7 billion closed in May. By early October the target had climbed to 80 billion yuan, and the final tally now sits near 100 billion yuan. The latest report gives no updated valuation.
The investor mix is the detail that sets this round apart from a typical Silicon Valley raise. CATL is the world's largest maker of electric vehicle batteries and Tencent runs China's dominant messaging platform, so the lead money in this round comes from strategic corporate investors rather than venture funds, joining a syndicate that already included China's national AI investment fund, NetEase and JD.com.
| Second 2026 round | About 100 billion yuan, roughly $15 billion |
| Growth of the target | 50 billion yuan, then 80 billion yuan, then about 100 billion yuan (2x the opening target) |
| First 2026 round | About $7 billion, closed in May |
| Outside capital raised in 2026 | Roughly $22 billion |
| Raised by each of OpenAI and Anthropic | More than $100 billion |
The money arrives two days after Washington ordered DeepSeek out of federal systems
The timing sharpens the split between DeepSeek's two largest markets. On October 20 the Department of Homeland Security ordered every federal civilian agency to remove DeepSeek products, including third-party tools built on its models. Two days later came word of the largest financing in the company's history, led by two of China's biggest listed companies. DeepSeek has also hired CITIC Securities to prepare a possible listing on Shanghai's STAR Market, and a round of this size gives it a priced, well-capitalized position heading toward that filing.
DeepSeek built its reputation on doing more with less compute. A $15 billion round tests whether that discipline survives once the money stops being scarce.
The scale still trails the US frontier by a wide margin. OpenAI and Anthropic have each raised more than $100 billion, so DeepSeek's entire 2026 haul amounts to roughly a fifth of either rival's total. Its competitive edge has come from efficiency, most recently with V4.1 Flash, an open model priced for mass use, and the company has been stepping up spending on data centers and open-source models that the new capital can now fund at scale.
OpenAI and Anthropic have each raised more than $100 billion. Roughly what share of that is DeepSeek's 2026 total of about $22 billion?
For a lab whose open models already set the price floor for much of the industry, even a partial narrowing of that funding gap raises the pressure on every company competing on cost, and it arrives just as the United States moves to keep those same models out of its government.
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